You'll have to pardon my rather esoteric ramblings this morning, it was a long night and a rough weekend for many of us.

I don't have a good news story to breakdown this morning I'm afriad. This weekend's news cycle was understandably dominated by rehashed stories of the horrific tragedy in Connecticut, along with calls for either the banning of gun ownership or for arming school teachers with high velocity/small caliber rifles, depending on which side of the political spectrum was flexing their media muscles. In 1939, science fiction writer Robert A. Heinlein first mapped out what would become his celebrated "Future History." In it, the period of time in which we're living now was described simply as "The Crazy Years." Looking today out over a world willfully rushing headlong into an environmental catastrophe, where madmen kill school children by the dozens, and in which the government of the United States gives carte blanche to bankers to break the law (so long as they make a lot of money doing it), it's hard sometimes to disagree with his predictive assessment.

Of course, "crazy," aside from being ableist, is also quite relative. I'm positive that Maggie Gallagher and Bill O'Reilly would eagerly agree with that description of our times; yet what they see as markers of society's impending collapse, I see as bright spots amidst a sea of chaos. Equality for queer/LGBT people, a growing public will to strengthen the social safety net, and greater freedom for people to follow their own hearts in their spiritual and religious beliefs, or lack thereof, are in my mind just a few of the indicators pointing to a future in which we could pull through this whole mess mess and come out the other side a better nation and world for it.

Today's links are a healthy mix of chaos and signs of hope, so here's what you need to know today:

Some positive news out of France, where a crowd of 60,000 - 150,000 people rallied in support of same-sex marriage and adoption rights.

A Salvation Army bell-ringer was pulled off the red kettle for posting a sign telling gay-rights supporters not to bother donating organization, which has received criticism in recent years over its anti-LGBT politics. It isn't clear whether the motivation was intended to be supportive or opposed to LGBT rights.

It's predictable, but horrifying nonetheless: The Westboro Baptist Church has been celebrating on social media the brutal murder of twenty-sex people in Connecticut on Friday, which they attribute to America's tolerance of homosexuality. Not content with that gloating through the internet, they have announced their intention to protest the funerals of the victims, twenty of whom were very young children.

I'm loath to hold someone's religious beliefs against them, but given the involvement of the Scalia family in an exceptionally anti-LGBT church, perhaps he should consider recusing himself from upcoming SCOTUS cases involving same-sex marriage. (but you know he won't)

New polling finds growing support for same-sex marriage among people who identify as conservatives, particularly among Baby Boomers.

Gustavo Archilla, who became a public face of same-sex marriage in 2003 when he and his partner of fifty-eight years eloped to Canada to take advantage of marriage equality there, has passed away at the age of ninty-six.

A group of Anglican vicars is saying that if the British government goes ahead with banning same-sex marriages in the Church of England, they'll go around the ban by encouraging parishioners to marry in welcoming churches and then blessing those unions.

The American Bar Association Commission on Sexual Orientation and Gender Identity has announced that three lawyers will be receiving the first ever Stonewall Award for contributions to both LGBT legal issues and the advancement of LGBT people in the law.

Highly paid NOM operative Jennifer Roback Morse may finally have jumped the shark with a new recording of her calling same-sex marriage a "pagan ideology" and comparing gays to Nazis.

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